


Not Quite Peace

by creepy_shetan



Category: Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy (2011), Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy - All Media Types, Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy - John Le Carré
Genre: Community: comment_fic, Established Relationship, Gen, Inspired by Music, M/M, Non-sexual, Post-Canon, Spies & Secret Agents, Trauma
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-12-08
Updated: 2014-12-08
Packaged: 2018-02-28 12:28:57
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,761
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2732570
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/creepy_shetan/pseuds/creepy_shetan
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Peter's had a bad week. Jim's had worse company.</p>
<p>(Originally posted 2014/12/6 as a fill for a prompt.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	Not Quite Peace

**Author's Note:**

  * For [classics_lover](https://archiveofourown.org/gifts?recipient=classics_lover).



Though faint, Peter heard the door open and close, then the sound of the bolt sliding into place. He didn't turn around, merely lifted his gaze to a purposely positioned mirror and watched Jim remove his coat and boots. For a couple of minutes, Jim moved around his modest place putting things away. He stopped in front of a small paper gift bag sitting on what passed for his dining table and writing desk.

“A souvenir? Really?”

His voice was hoarse and his tone deadpan, but the barest hints of surprise and dry humor were layered into his words.

“Open it later,” Peter replied with a careless wave of his hand that Jim could see and a wry smile that he could not.

Jim stepped into the light of his floor lamp and his electric space heater and finally got a good view of Peter, who sat on his old rug in the precise spot where the two glows converged. Peter had the look of someone who had been abruptly awoken from a long hard sleep and was now wary of going back to sleep just in case the disturbance kept reoccurring. His hair was disorderly and falling into his eyes, which were a dull blue-black shade that couldn't be solely the result of his dimly lit surroundings. He leaned against Jim's couch with his coat lain open underneath him, like he had shed it when the heat had kicked in however long ago. Jim had been gone for maybe one hour, maybe a little less, so the room would have still been somewhat warm whenever Peter let himself in with his badly-hidden-from-people-like-them spare key. (After the first couple of times Peter dropped by unannounced, Jim began to leave the key outside when he left to avoid any awkward moments when he returned.)

Although his coat was more or less intact, Peter's clothes were a mess. A dirty, half-buttoned shirt clung to his thin frame under an open and stained cardigan, and his trousers were darkened well above the ankles. (Jim didn't see his shoes or any muck tracked in anywhere.) One knee was visible through a large rip in the fabric and looked like it had been recently tended to, but not here. Conversely, every other visible patch of skin unabashedly showed signs of quite a struggle, one that Peter had obviously survived but possibly didn't outright win. From what Jim could see, this wasn't even in the top ten of the worst days on the job physically; he knew all too well that mentally, however, it could be another story entirely.

Jim didn't say anything, his visual assessment very quick but most likely noticed by Peter regardless. Whatever had happened was Peter's business. He already carried enough of his own tales of the Circus (a few of which he and Peter shared) to not need the burden of any more stories. He instead stepped over to the heater and turned it a little, adjusting the angle.

“Move over.”

Peter gave Jim a look, and again motioned vaguely with his hand.

“Your back.”

Jim tilted his chin in his own small motion toward Peter.

“Your knee.”

“It's fine,” Peter said with a little sharpness as he leveraged himself up and back with both arms to where he sat on the couch, his movements stiff but stubbornly determined, his coat left in a crumpled heap at his feet. 

Once settled, Peter crossed his arms and stared up at Jim expectantly. There was a time, when he was still green, that Peter would have paired a look like that with a roll or a lick of his lips, drawing attention to his mouth. He later learned how to utilize his eyes and brows instead and to greater effect; over time, it became a devastating tool that he practiced on the unsuspecting at the office. Now, however, in the low lamplight, Peter had no need for it. His occasional trespassing notwithstanding, he respected Jim. Besides, Peter was too tired and Jim was too sensible for such things.

Grunting softly, Jim slowly sat to Peter's right, careful not to jar his shoulder blade and back muscles as he sought a comfortable position. His eyes lingered on Peter's injured right leg for a long moment before he reached over to where it was stretched out toward the heater and gingerly pulled it into his lap. Peter made a faint gasping noise before clamping his jaw shut, his hands the only other indication of the pain that the movement caused as they gripped his biceps, his arms still folded over his torso. Jim leaned over to closer inspect the joint rather than moving it again. After a little poking and prodding, Jim clicked his tongue.

“Baseball bat?”

Peter looked down and away. Jim didn't glance at his face, but he could feel the tension in his body build next to him.

“...For starters.”

A few heartbeats passed in silence, and then Peter felt Jim's hand cover his knee. He jerked, eyes widening in panic, a hand reaching out to grab any part of Jim it could and finding purchase in his soft worn jumper. Jim simply covered the fist at his collar with his other hand. After a second, Peter realized nothing was happening. In the absence of a threat, he took a slow even breath, and he could now feel the strange sensation of Jim's still-chilled fingers and his already-warmed palms where they touched his skin. Jim put no pressure on either the knee or the fist, the latter loosening but remaining in place as Jim held it under his collarbone. Peter didn't even consider pulling his hand away.

The chilled skin gradually warmed, and only when Peter consciously made the rest of his muscles relax did Jim meet his gaze. He relocated their joined hands to rest on Peter's thigh in Jim's lap, their fingers shifting and curling until finally settling into a loosely entwined jumble. Suddenly aware of his right arm being free, Peter slid his hand under and around Jim's left arm and leaned his shoulder against Jim. Both sat slouched on the couch and let their heads fall back to rest on its cushions.

Sitting between two sources of heat, no trace of the cold was left in Jim. Under the widely ripped fabric of Peter's trouser leg, Jim's fingers began to slowly move up and down, back and forth, over the inner side of Peter's knee, where it was least damaged. He used the pads of his fingers at first, and then he turned his hand and used his knuckles.

The steady rhythm and the warmth emanating from both the heater and Jim made Peter drowsy and languid, but his eyes remained open and his ears attentive. Despite the calm that had descended over the room, he couldn't let go of his senses completely, not after so many years of fine-tuning them. Peter supposed that, out of everyone he knew from work, Jim would be the one who could best relate to how Peter felt and why, and not just because they had been assigned to the same department.

Peter sometimes witnessed flashes of the old Jim in the current Jim, in the way he carried himself or in his very-un-civilian-like habits. How much of it was the training being second nature and how much of it was Jim's true nature was difficult to discern; Peter had never met the pre-Circus Jim and they hadn't been particularly close at work. He was terribly weary now, that much was plain to see, but at the same time, Jim was not apathetic or desolate or paranoid or insane. Too many of their kind ended up following one or more of those paths and never escaped from it. Very few lived to see any sort of life after the job, pleasant or otherwise.

Peter made his eyes close. Heightened senses and reflexes were what kept people like them breathing, not living. He wanted to be an exception to the rule, to not fall into the pattern that he finally began to see after Jim was forced out. He tried to let go of his instincts as best he could, focusing on breathing steadily and the feeling of Jim pressed against him. Nagging thoughts and fresh memories weighed on his mind, but it didn't mean that Peter couldn't appreciate the rare, quiet, almost peace that he found himself caught in the middle of with someone he had come to trust.

Peter opened his eyes again and leaned away from Jim. Smirking at the other man's confusion, he pulled Jim down to lie on the couch with him, each carefully readjusting themselves until both were comfortable. Jim managed to lie half under Peter without his back protesting. Peter's injured leg somehow made it to the top of their tangled limbs without incident. His disheveled clothing had shifted as well; Jim could see more of Peter's chest, neck, and arms. His usually fair skin was littered with more than dirty, sweat-streaked grime and dried blood. Feeling his stare, Peter lifted a hand to cover himself again, but Jim's low murmur stopped him.

“All surface damage, right?”

Peter's hand hovered in the air, his lips sealed. Jim held him closer, his gaze drifting upward to Peter's face.

“Can't have you bleeding in on my couch,” he continued dryly.

The corner of Peter's mouth quirked and he nodded, redirecting his hand to his head. His fingers lightly pushed his hair aside over his right ear.

“Nothing internal except a minor concussion,” Peter experimentally shifted his abdomen a little, “and maybe a bruised rib or two.”

Jim's breath ghosted over Peter's shoulder to his cheek as he sighed sharply in amusement. His head shifted to where his nose could brush the shell of Peter's ear.

“And you're worried about my old injuries...”

Peter parted his lips to say something, but then thought better of it. They were both too exhausted for that particular response and its many strings attached. Now, while they were comfortably warm and beginning to let themselves get lost in the calm of each other's company, was not the time to cross that line.

“Shut up,” Peter said succinctly.

Neither told the other to go to sleep, nor did they offer any soothing words. Words could never compete with the closeness of a solid living presence. Under the glow of the lamp and the heater, Peter and Jim allowed their shared warmth and even heartbeats to gradually ease them to sleep, the cold outside temporarily forgotten.

**Author's Note:**

> The prompt: Author's Choice, author's choice,  
>  _After I have traveled so far_  
>  _We'd set the fire to the third bar_  
>  _We'd share each other like an island_  
>  _Until exhausted, close our eyelids_  
>  The theme: Fire  
> Originally posted [here](http://comment-fic.livejournal.com/572598.html?thread=80085174#t80085174).  
> I only own the writing.
> 
> For the curious...  
> \+ The prompt is from Snow Patrol's song "Set the Fire to the Third Bar," featuring Martha Wainwright. The title was semi-inspired by it as well.  
> \+ I'm not sure how this story happened. 6^^;; I haven't thought about TTSS in a while, and I've never made it past the idea stage for fics before. I've wanted to write these two characters for a long time, though.  
> \+ The details are purposely vague so that it could work with both book 'verse and movie 'verse. The ambiguity of their relationship was also intentional. Tagging it gave me trouble, haha. It's not pre-slash, and there's no UST... They're not friends, they're not lovers -- but they're definitely something.


End file.
